Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if, with regard to the Commom Agricultural Policy, he will continue with the current payments regime or if he will alter it to reflect the flattening of payments as proposed by the EU Commissioner for Agriculture; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15363/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I intend neither to continue with the current direct payments regime nor to move to the type of national or regional flat-rate system proposed by the Commission, but rather to implement a limited redistribution of payments that will result in a fairer, more balanced system.

I think we in Ireland can all agree that we should move away from payments based entirely on out-of-date historic entitlements, which severely disadvantage some farmers. However, I believe we should do so in a way that does not result in unacceptably large transfers from our most productive farmers. The Commission’s proposal would have the latter effect. The Deputy is no doubt aware of the analysis carried out by my Department based on our 2010 payments database, which shows that, under the Commission’s proposal, €280 million would be transferred between Irish farmers, with 70,000 gaining by an average of 75% and 54,000 losing by an average of 32%. I believe this is unsustainable, and would jeopardise the development of the agri-food sector as foreseen under the Food Harvest 2020 strategy.

This is why I have consistently argued for an alternative, more measured, approach that acknowledges the need to move from historic references while not going as far or as fast as envisaged by the Commission. Last year I proposed a partial convergence model which would result in the transfer of €74 million between Irish farmers, with 60,000 gaining by an average of 25% and 53,000 losing by an average of 8%. This is the minimum transfer generated by the partial convergence model – Member States would have the flexibility to go further if they wished. I worked very hard to persuade my Member State colleagues that this alternative model should be incorporated into the Commission’s proposals on direct payments, and was successful in building a strong alliance to this effect.

Although this is a highly sensitive issue for all Member States, I am very pleased that last week’s Council of Agriculture Ministers endorsed this approach and agreed to include the Irish model in the options available for the distribution of direct payments. This enhances the prospect of a more reasonable level of transfers of payments between farmers than would be the case under the Commission’s flat-rate proposal.

Of course, this issue still has to be negotiated further, and the reality is that the final outcome will be somewhere between the Commission proposal and the Irish proposal. However, the important point is that the Irish model is at the centre of the negotiations, and I will be working to ensure that the final outcome is as close as possible to this model.